Why Monster over NPCs?

[Kerney]

Question to the judges?

I've noticed the last few times you've done monsters rather than npcs in your create a npc/monster round where as before it seemed (without looking) that it was 50/50 as the contest has evolve into its current form.

Is there something to this?

[The Raven Black]

I am not a judge, but my guess is that creating a NPC shows the skills to create an engaging story, to write a flavorful depiction and to build a solid statblock.

While creating a monster includes all of the above plus the skill to design and integrate new balanced abilities.

I might be wrong though, it is only my guess.

[Adam Daigle]

The Raven Black has the right of it, but I'll expand on that bit. Sure, NPCs can test much of the same stuff that designing a monster can, but it tests so much more. Making an NPC (like the popular villain round way back) can show a lot of creativity when coming up with motivations and backstory, but for the most part they are just going to be existing creatures with class levels. A brand new monster has to be designed from the ground up. You have to name it, come up with what it looks like, what kind of things it can do, in addition to origin and motivation/behavior.

Testing new writers with monsters is something I've done for the past few years I've been working here and hiring freelancers. It lets me see what people can do mechanically, creatively, and it lets me see their prose in a nice neat package.

[Wren Brown]

I agree with TRB.

NPCs follow the rules of characters. Thus they have pre-defined abilities based on their race and class.

Monsters allow a designer to create new special abilities from scratch. How well those abilities fit with the monster's stat block and theme are what make a monster "successful" or not and I think they show alot about the designers skill as well.

edit: ninja'd by Adam

[John Compton]

I'll add that NPC design relies fairly heavily on the context in which the character appears, speaking to a larger story. In RPG Superstar, that might allow the contestant to artfully imply a bigger story; however, a monster is much easier to view on its own merits rather than that of the incidental narrative tied up in the NPC's background. It's also a lot easier to publish a monster than an NPC write-up because one of the creatures can show up in a wide variety of encounters and adventures. The NPC might appear but once.

Don't get me wrong--NPC creation is an important skill. I'm just not convinced that it's the ideal skill to test during this competition.

[Mikko Kallio]

As a former monster round judge, I very much agree with the comments above. In my opinion, the ability to create interesting and mechanically sound special abilities is one of the five essential skills a monster designer needs. Designing a villain simply doesn't test that skill.

Also, I'd like to add that rounds 4 and 5 do test your ability to come up with interesting backstories and motivations for NPCs/villains. Can't have an adventure without a villain, and in my opinion, R4 encounters should generally include a villain, not just a bunch of random monsters.

[Liz Courts]

What everybody else said. Creating an interesting villain is hard without sufficient context, whereas an interesting monster will create plenty of context on its own.

[Garrick Williams]

This is a competition to write a published module. Almost every module introduces a new type of monster that needed a write up from the ground up. NPCs either don't need full write ups or can be written as having a combination of class levels. I'm sure this is a factor as well.

In addition, as Mikko points out, playing out an NPC/villain's actions through an encounter or adventure does a better job of characterizing them than listing their background or motivations. Action defines character.

[Curaigh]

John Compton wrote:

... It's also a lot easier to publish a monster than an NPC write-up because one of the creatures can show up in a wide variety of encounters and adventures. The NPC might appear but once....

My emphasis.

Precisely why I don't like monsters as much as NPCs.

Please note, I'm not arguing. Monster is by far the better test for RPGSS, just that I would rather have cool NPCs in adventures I purchase than new monsters :)

[Robert Thomson]

Curaigh wrote:

Please note, I'm not arguing. Monster is by far the better test for RPGSS, just that I would rather have cool NPCs in adventures I purchase than new monsters :)

I'm in the same boat as Curaigh.

1) I absolutely believe the monster is the better test for RPGSS, and should be the preferred test. (I'm still a fan of mixing up the rounds so it isn't the same every season as well though.)

2) I think writing NPC's is far more fun, and as both a player and GM, I find the NPC's to be more interesting and memorable than the monsters.

[Kerney]

Robert Thomson wrote:

1) I absolutely believe the monster is the better test for RPGSS, and should be the preferred test. (I'm still a fan of mixing up the rounds so it isn't the same every season as well though.)

2) I think writing NPC's is far more fun, and as both a player and GM, I find the NPC's to be more interesting and memorable than the monsters.

Pretty much agree with all of this and my theory was that monster may be better for showing design potential. One thing on an adventure though, the point is to tell a good story. Playing devils advocate here, but isn't the ability to design a good monster when you have tons of them already kinda unimportant when you have 4 bestiaries to pull from?

Meanwhile, isn't a compelling npc is always important?

[Robert Thomson]

Kerney wrote:

Robert Thomson wrote:

1) I absolutely believe the monster is the better test for RPGSS, and should be the preferred test. (I'm still a fan of mixing up the rounds so it isn't the same every season as well though.)

2) I think writing NPC's is far more fun, and as both a player and GM, I find the NPC's to be more interesting and memorable than the monsters.

Pretty much agree with all of this and my theory was that monster may be better for showing design potential. One thing on an adventure though, the point is to tell a good story. Playing devils advocate here, but isn't the ability to design a good monster when you have tons of them already kinda unimportant when you have 4 bestiaries to pull from?

Meanwhile, isn't a compelling npc is always important?

I can answer that one. Every module and AP comes with a couple of custom monsters, so if you are going to write modules and adventure paths, monster making is an important skill. Most of the low lying fruit has been picked for monsters, so monsters get harder and harder to keep unique over time.

And as it's been said elsewhere, NPC's will get covered in later round (especially the pitch).

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

Folks have already covered this, but the really, really short answer is that when I have checked on what rounds developers within the company felt were both good tests for adventure writers and a useful benchmark to see the skills of contestants who don't happen to win, the monster round is almost unanimously listed near the top. and an npc round almost never listed at all.